ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/AnyEvent/lib/AnyEvent.pm
Revision: 1.125
Committed: Fri May 23 23:37:13 2008 UTC (16 years, 1 month ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.124: +30 -3 lines
Log Message:
*** empty log message ***

File Contents

# Content
1 =head1 => NAME
2
3 AnyEvent - provide framework for multiple event loops
4
5 EV, Event, Glib, Tk, Perl, Event::Lib, Qt, POE - various supported event loops
6
7 =head1 SYNOPSIS
8
9 use AnyEvent;
10
11 my $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => $fh, poll => "r|w", cb => sub {
12 ...
13 });
14
15 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => $seconds, cb => sub {
16 ...
17 });
18
19 my $w = AnyEvent->condvar; # stores whether a condition was flagged
20 $w->send; # wake up current and all future recv's
21 $w->recv; # enters "main loop" till $condvar gets ->send
22
23 =head1 WHY YOU SHOULD USE THIS MODULE (OR NOT)
24
25 Glib, POE, IO::Async, Event... CPAN offers event models by the dozen
26 nowadays. So what is different about AnyEvent?
27
28 Executive Summary: AnyEvent is I<compatible>, AnyEvent is I<free of
29 policy> and AnyEvent is I<small and efficient>.
30
31 First and foremost, I<AnyEvent is not an event model> itself, it only
32 interfaces to whatever event model the main program happens to use in a
33 pragmatic way. For event models and certain classes of immortals alike,
34 the statement "there can only be one" is a bitter reality: In general,
35 only one event loop can be active at the same time in a process. AnyEvent
36 helps hiding the differences between those event loops.
37
38 The goal of AnyEvent is to offer module authors the ability to do event
39 programming (waiting for I/O or timer events) without subscribing to a
40 religion, a way of living, and most importantly: without forcing your
41 module users into the same thing by forcing them to use the same event
42 model you use.
43
44 For modules like POE or IO::Async (which is a total misnomer as it is
45 actually doing all I/O I<synchronously>...), using them in your module is
46 like joining a cult: After you joined, you are dependent on them and you
47 cannot use anything else, as it is simply incompatible to everything that
48 isn't itself. What's worse, all the potential users of your module are
49 I<also> forced to use the same event loop you use.
50
51 AnyEvent is different: AnyEvent + POE works fine. AnyEvent + Glib works
52 fine. AnyEvent + Tk works fine etc. etc. but none of these work together
53 with the rest: POE + IO::Async? no go. Tk + Event? no go. Again: if
54 your module uses one of those, every user of your module has to use it,
55 too. But if your module uses AnyEvent, it works transparently with all
56 event models it supports (including stuff like POE and IO::Async, as long
57 as those use one of the supported event loops. It is trivial to add new
58 event loops to AnyEvent, too, so it is future-proof).
59
60 In addition to being free of having to use I<the one and only true event
61 model>, AnyEvent also is free of bloat and policy: with POE or similar
62 modules, you get an enourmous amount of code and strict rules you have to
63 follow. AnyEvent, on the other hand, is lean and up to the point, by only
64 offering the functionality that is necessary, in as thin as a wrapper as
65 technically possible.
66
67 Of course, if you want lots of policy (this can arguably be somewhat
68 useful) and you want to force your users to use the one and only event
69 model, you should I<not> use this module.
70
71 =head1 DESCRIPTION
72
73 L<AnyEvent> provides an identical interface to multiple event loops. This
74 allows module authors to utilise an event loop without forcing module
75 users to use the same event loop (as only a single event loop can coexist
76 peacefully at any one time).
77
78 The interface itself is vaguely similar, but not identical to the L<Event>
79 module.
80
81 During the first call of any watcher-creation method, the module tries
82 to detect the currently loaded event loop by probing whether one of the
83 following modules is already loaded: L<EV>,
84 L<Event>, L<Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>,
85 L<POE>. The first one found is used. If none are found, the module tries
86 to load these modules (excluding Tk, Event::Lib, Qt and POE as the pure perl
87 adaptor should always succeed) in the order given. The first one that can
88 be successfully loaded will be used. If, after this, still none could be
89 found, AnyEvent will fall back to a pure-perl event loop, which is not
90 very efficient, but should work everywhere.
91
92 Because AnyEvent first checks for modules that are already loaded, loading
93 an event model explicitly before first using AnyEvent will likely make
94 that model the default. For example:
95
96 use Tk;
97 use AnyEvent;
98
99 # .. AnyEvent will likely default to Tk
100
101 The I<likely> means that, if any module loads another event model and
102 starts using it, all bets are off. Maybe you should tell their authors to
103 use AnyEvent so their modules work together with others seamlessly...
104
105 The pure-perl implementation of AnyEvent is called
106 C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>. Like other event modules you can load it
107 explicitly.
108
109 =head1 WATCHERS
110
111 AnyEvent has the central concept of a I<watcher>, which is an object that
112 stores relevant data for each kind of event you are waiting for, such as
113 the callback to call, the filehandle to watch, etc.
114
115 These watchers are normal Perl objects with normal Perl lifetime. After
116 creating a watcher it will immediately "watch" for events and invoke the
117 callback when the event occurs (of course, only when the event model
118 is in control).
119
120 To disable the watcher you have to destroy it (e.g. by setting the
121 variable you store it in to C<undef> or otherwise deleting all references
122 to it).
123
124 All watchers are created by calling a method on the C<AnyEvent> class.
125
126 Many watchers either are used with "recursion" (repeating timers for
127 example), or need to refer to their watcher object in other ways.
128
129 An any way to achieve that is this pattern:
130
131 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->type (arg => value ..., cb => sub {
132 # you can use $w here, for example to undef it
133 undef $w;
134 });
135
136 Note that C<my $w; $w => combination. This is necessary because in Perl,
137 my variables are only visible after the statement in which they are
138 declared.
139
140 =head2 I/O WATCHERS
141
142 You can create an I/O watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->io >> method
143 with the following mandatory key-value pairs as arguments:
144
145 C<fh> the Perl I<file handle> (I<not> file descriptor) to watch
146 for events. C<poll> must be a string that is either C<r> or C<w>,
147 which creates a watcher waiting for "r"eadable or "w"ritable events,
148 respectively. C<cb> is the callback to invoke each time the file handle
149 becomes ready.
150
151 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
152 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
153 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to I/O watcher callbacks.
154
155 The I/O watcher might use the underlying file descriptor or a copy of it.
156 You must not close a file handle as long as any watcher is active on the
157 underlying file descriptor.
158
159 Some event loops issue spurious readyness notifications, so you should
160 always use non-blocking calls when reading/writing from/to your file
161 handles.
162
163 Example:
164
165 # wait for readability of STDIN, then read a line and disable the watcher
166 my $w; $w = AnyEvent->io (fh => \*STDIN, poll => 'r', cb => sub {
167 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>);
168 warn "read: $input\n";
169 undef $w;
170 });
171
172 =head2 TIME WATCHERS
173
174 You can create a time watcher by calling the C<< AnyEvent->timer >>
175 method with the following mandatory arguments:
176
177 C<after> specifies after how many seconds (fractional values are
178 supported) the callback should be invoked. C<cb> is the callback to invoke
179 in that case.
180
181 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
182 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
183 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to time watcher callbacks.
184
185 The timer callback will be invoked at most once: if you want a repeating
186 timer you have to create a new watcher (this is a limitation by both Tk
187 and Glib).
188
189 Example:
190
191 # fire an event after 7.7 seconds
192 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 7.7, cb => sub {
193 warn "timeout\n";
194 });
195
196 # to cancel the timer:
197 undef $w;
198
199 Example 2:
200
201 # fire an event after 0.5 seconds, then roughly every second
202 my $w;
203
204 my $cb = sub {
205 # cancel the old timer while creating a new one
206 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => $cb);
207 };
208
209 # start the "loop" by creating the first watcher
210 $w = AnyEvent->timer (after => 0.5, cb => $cb);
211
212 =head3 TIMING ISSUES
213
214 There are two ways to handle timers: based on real time (relative, "fire
215 in 10 seconds") and based on wallclock time (absolute, "fire at 12
216 o'clock").
217
218 While most event loops expect timers to specified in a relative way, they
219 use absolute time internally. This makes a difference when your clock
220 "jumps", for example, when ntp decides to set your clock backwards from
221 the wrong date of 2014-01-01 to 2008-01-01, a watcher that is supposed to
222 fire "after" a second might actually take six years to finally fire.
223
224 AnyEvent cannot compensate for this. The only event loop that is conscious
225 about these issues is L<EV>, which offers both relative (ev_timer, based
226 on true relative time) and absolute (ev_periodic, based on wallclock time)
227 timers.
228
229 AnyEvent always prefers relative timers, if available, matching the
230 AnyEvent API.
231
232 =head2 SIGNAL WATCHERS
233
234 You can watch for signals using a signal watcher, C<signal> is the signal
235 I<name> without any C<SIG> prefix, C<cb> is the Perl callback to
236 be invoked whenever a signal occurs.
237
238 Although the callback might get passed parameters, their value and
239 presence is undefined and you cannot rely on them. Portable AnyEvent
240 callbacks cannot use arguments passed to signal watcher callbacks.
241
242 Multiple signal occurances can be clumped together into one callback
243 invocation, and callback invocation will be synchronous. synchronous means
244 that it might take a while until the signal gets handled by the process,
245 but it is guarenteed not to interrupt any other callbacks.
246
247 The main advantage of using these watchers is that you can share a signal
248 between multiple watchers.
249
250 This watcher might use C<%SIG>, so programs overwriting those signals
251 directly will likely not work correctly.
252
253 Example: exit on SIGINT
254
255 my $w = AnyEvent->signal (signal => "INT", cb => sub { exit 1 });
256
257 =head2 CHILD PROCESS WATCHERS
258
259 You can also watch on a child process exit and catch its exit status.
260
261 The child process is specified by the C<pid> argument (if set to C<0>, it
262 watches for any child process exit). The watcher will trigger as often
263 as status change for the child are received. This works by installing a
264 signal handler for C<SIGCHLD>. The callback will be called with the pid
265 and exit status (as returned by waitpid), so unlike other watcher types,
266 you I<can> rely on child watcher callback arguments.
267
268 There is a slight catch to child watchers, however: you usually start them
269 I<after> the child process was created, and this means the process could
270 have exited already (and no SIGCHLD will be sent anymore).
271
272 Not all event models handle this correctly (POE doesn't), but even for
273 event models that I<do> handle this correctly, they usually need to be
274 loaded before the process exits (i.e. before you fork in the first place).
275
276 This means you cannot create a child watcher as the very first thing in an
277 AnyEvent program, you I<have> to create at least one watcher before you
278 C<fork> the child (alternatively, you can call C<AnyEvent::detect>).
279
280 Example: fork a process and wait for it
281
282 my $done = AnyEvent->condvar;
283
284 my $pid = fork or exit 5;
285
286 my $w = AnyEvent->child (
287 pid => $pid,
288 cb => sub {
289 my ($pid, $status) = @_;
290 warn "pid $pid exited with status $status";
291 $done->send;
292 },
293 );
294
295 # do something else, then wait for process exit
296 $done->recv;
297
298 =head2 CONDITION VARIABLES
299
300 If you are familiar with some event loops you will know that all of them
301 require you to run some blocking "loop", "run" or similar function that
302 will actively watch for new events and call your callbacks.
303
304 AnyEvent is different, it expects somebody else to run the event loop and
305 will only block when necessary (usually when told by the user).
306
307 The instrument to do that is called a "condition variable", so called
308 because they represent a condition that must become true.
309
310 Condition variables can be created by calling the C<< AnyEvent->condvar
311 >> method, usually without arguments. The only argument pair allowed is
312 C<cb>, which specifies a callback to be called when the condition variable
313 becomes true.
314
315 After creation, the conditon variable is "false" until it becomes "true"
316 by calling the C<send> method.
317
318 Condition variables are similar to callbacks, except that you can
319 optionally wait for them. They can also be called merge points - points
320 in time where multiple outstandign events have been processed. And yet
321 another way to call them is transations - each condition variable can be
322 used to represent a transaction, which finishes at some point and delivers
323 a result.
324
325 Condition variables are very useful to signal that something has finished,
326 for example, if you write a module that does asynchronous http requests,
327 then a condition variable would be the ideal candidate to signal the
328 availability of results. The user can either act when the callback is
329 called or can synchronously C<< ->recv >> for the results.
330
331 You can also use them to simulate traditional event loops - for example,
332 you can block your main program until an event occurs - for example, you
333 could C<< ->recv >> in your main program until the user clicks the Quit
334 button of your app, which would C<< ->send >> the "quit" event.
335
336 Note that condition variables recurse into the event loop - if you have
337 two pieces of code that call C<< ->recv >> in a round-robbin fashion, you
338 lose. Therefore, condition variables are good to export to your caller, but
339 you should avoid making a blocking wait yourself, at least in callbacks,
340 as this asks for trouble.
341
342 Condition variables are represented by hash refs in perl, and the keys
343 used by AnyEvent itself are all named C<_ae_XXX> to make subclassing
344 easy (it is often useful to build your own transaction class on top of
345 AnyEvent). To subclass, use C<AnyEvent::CondVar> as base class and call
346 it's C<new> method in your own C<new> method.
347
348 There are two "sides" to a condition variable - the "producer side" which
349 eventually calls C<< -> send >>, and the "consumer side", which waits
350 for the send to occur.
351
352 Example:
353
354 # wait till the result is ready
355 my $result_ready = AnyEvent->condvar;
356
357 # do something such as adding a timer
358 # or socket watcher the calls $result_ready->send
359 # when the "result" is ready.
360 # in this case, we simply use a timer:
361 my $w = AnyEvent->timer (
362 after => 1,
363 cb => sub { $result_ready->send },
364 );
365
366 # this "blocks" (while handling events) till the callback
367 # calls send
368 $result_ready->recv;
369
370 =head3 METHODS FOR PRODUCERS
371
372 These methods should only be used by the producing side, i.e. the
373 code/module that eventually sends the signal. Note that it is also
374 the producer side which creates the condvar in most cases, but it isn't
375 uncommon for the consumer to create it as well.
376
377 =over 4
378
379 =item $cv->send (...)
380
381 Flag the condition as ready - a running C<< ->recv >> and all further
382 calls to C<recv> will (eventually) return after this method has been
383 called. If nobody is waiting the send will be remembered.
384
385 If a callback has been set on the condition variable, it is called
386 immediately from within send.
387
388 Any arguments passed to the C<send> call will be returned by all
389 future C<< ->recv >> calls.
390
391 =item $cv->croak ($error)
392
393 Similar to send, but causes all call's to C<< ->recv >> to invoke
394 C<Carp::croak> with the given error message/object/scalar.
395
396 This can be used to signal any errors to the condition variable
397 user/consumer.
398
399 =item $cv->begin ([group callback])
400
401 =item $cv->end
402
403 These two methods are EXPERIMENTAL and MIGHT CHANGE.
404
405 These two methods can be used to combine many transactions/events into
406 one. For example, a function that pings many hosts in parallel might want
407 to use a condition variable for the whole process.
408
409 Every call to C<< ->begin >> will increment a counter, and every call to
410 C<< ->end >> will decrement it. If the counter reaches C<0> in C<< ->end
411 >>, the (last) callback passed to C<begin> will be executed. That callback
412 is I<supposed> to call C<< ->send >>, but that is not required. If no
413 callback was set, C<send> will be called without any arguments.
414
415 Let's clarify this with the ping example:
416
417 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
418
419 my %result;
420 $cv->begin (sub { $cv->send (\%result) });
421
422 for my $host (@list_of_hosts) {
423 $cv->begin;
424 ping_host_then_call_callback $host, sub {
425 $result{$host} = ...;
426 $cv->end;
427 };
428 }
429
430 $cv->end;
431
432 This code fragment supposedly pings a number of hosts and calls
433 C<send> after results for all then have have been gathered - in any
434 order. To achieve this, the code issues a call to C<begin> when it starts
435 each ping request and calls C<end> when it has received some result for
436 it. Since C<begin> and C<end> only maintain a counter, the order in which
437 results arrive is not relevant.
438
439 There is an additional bracketing call to C<begin> and C<end> outside the
440 loop, which serves two important purposes: first, it sets the callback
441 to be called once the counter reaches C<0>, and second, it ensures that
442 C<send> is called even when C<no> hosts are being pinged (the loop
443 doesn't execute once).
444
445 This is the general pattern when you "fan out" into multiple subrequests:
446 use an outer C<begin>/C<end> pair to set the callback and ensure C<end>
447 is called at least once, and then, for each subrequest you start, call
448 C<begin> and for eahc subrequest you finish, call C<end>.
449
450 =back
451
452 =head3 METHODS FOR CONSUMERS
453
454 These methods should only be used by the consuming side, i.e. the
455 code awaits the condition.
456
457 =over 4
458
459 =item $cv->recv
460
461 Wait (blocking if necessary) until the C<< ->send >> or C<< ->croak
462 >> methods have been called on c<$cv>, while servicing other watchers
463 normally.
464
465 You can only wait once on a condition - additional calls are valid but
466 will return immediately.
467
468 If an error condition has been set by calling C<< ->croak >>, then this
469 function will call C<croak>.
470
471 In list context, all parameters passed to C<send> will be returned,
472 in scalar context only the first one will be returned.
473
474 Not all event models support a blocking wait - some die in that case
475 (programs might want to do that to stay interactive), so I<if you are
476 using this from a module, never require a blocking wait>, but let the
477 caller decide whether the call will block or not (for example, by coupling
478 condition variables with some kind of request results and supporting
479 callbacks so the caller knows that getting the result will not block,
480 while still suppporting blocking waits if the caller so desires).
481
482 Another reason I<never> to C<< ->recv >> in a module is that you cannot
483 sensibly have two C<< ->recv >>'s in parallel, as that would require
484 multiple interpreters or coroutines/threads, none of which C<AnyEvent>
485 can supply.
486
487 The L<Coro> module, however, I<can> and I<does> supply coroutines and, in
488 fact, L<Coro::AnyEvent> replaces AnyEvent's condvars by coroutine-safe
489 versions and also integrates coroutines into AnyEvent, making blocking
490 C<< ->recv >> calls perfectly safe as long as they are done from another
491 coroutine (one that doesn't run the event loop).
492
493 You can ensure that C<< -recv >> never blocks by setting a callback and
494 only calling C<< ->recv >> from within that callback (or at a later
495 time). This will work even when the event loop does not support blocking
496 waits otherwise.
497
498 =item $bool = $cv->ready
499
500 Returns true when the condition is "true", i.e. whether C<send> or
501 C<croak> have been called.
502
503 =item $cb = $cv->cb ([new callback])
504
505 This is a mutator function that returns the callback set and optionally
506 replaces it before doing so.
507
508 The callback will be called when the condition becomes "true", i.e. when
509 C<send> or C<croak> are called. Calling C<recv> inside the callback
510 or at any later time is guaranteed not to block.
511
512 =back
513
514 =head1 GLOBAL VARIABLES AND FUNCTIONS
515
516 =over 4
517
518 =item $AnyEvent::MODEL
519
520 Contains C<undef> until the first watcher is being created. Then it
521 contains the event model that is being used, which is the name of the
522 Perl class implementing the model. This class is usually one of the
523 C<AnyEvent::Impl:xxx> modules, but can be any other class in the case
524 AnyEvent has been extended at runtime (e.g. in I<rxvt-unicode>).
525
526 The known classes so far are:
527
528 AnyEvent::Impl::EV based on EV (an interface to libev, best choice).
529 AnyEvent::Impl::Event based on Event, second best choice.
530 AnyEvent::Impl::Perl pure-perl implementation, fast and portable.
531 AnyEvent::Impl::Glib based on Glib, third-best choice.
532 AnyEvent::Impl::Tk based on Tk, very bad choice.
533 AnyEvent::Impl::Qt based on Qt, cannot be autoprobed (see its docs).
534 AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib based on Event::Lib, leaks memory and worse.
535 AnyEvent::Impl::POE based on POE, not generic enough for full support.
536
537 There is no support for WxWidgets, as WxWidgets has no support for
538 watching file handles. However, you can use WxWidgets through the
539 POE Adaptor, as POE has a Wx backend that simply polls 20 times per
540 second, which was considered to be too horrible to even consider for
541 AnyEvent. Likewise, other POE backends can be used by AnyEvent by using
542 it's adaptor.
543
544 AnyEvent knows about L<Prima> and L<Wx> and will try to use L<POE> when
545 autodetecting them.
546
547 =item AnyEvent::detect
548
549 Returns C<$AnyEvent::MODEL>, forcing autodetection of the event model
550 if necessary. You should only call this function right before you would
551 have created an AnyEvent watcher anyway, that is, as late as possible at
552 runtime.
553
554 =item $guard = AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }
555
556 Arranges for the code block to be executed as soon as the event model is
557 autodetected (or immediately if this has already happened).
558
559 If called in scalar or list context, then it creates and returns an object
560 that automatically removes the callback again when it is destroyed. See
561 L<Coro::BDB> for a case where this is useful.
562
563 =item @AnyEvent::post_detect
564
565 If there are any code references in this array (you can C<push> to it
566 before or after loading AnyEvent), then they will called directly after
567 the event loop has been chosen.
568
569 You should check C<$AnyEvent::MODEL> before adding to this array, though:
570 if it contains a true value then the event loop has already been detected,
571 and the array will be ignored.
572
573 Best use C<AnyEvent::post_detect { BLOCK }> instead.
574
575 =back
576
577 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN A MODULE
578
579 As a module author, you should C<use AnyEvent> and call AnyEvent methods
580 freely, but you should not load a specific event module or rely on it.
581
582 Be careful when you create watchers in the module body - AnyEvent will
583 decide which event module to use as soon as the first method is called, so
584 by calling AnyEvent in your module body you force the user of your module
585 to load the event module first.
586
587 Never call C<< ->recv >> on a condition variable unless you I<know> that
588 the C<< ->send >> method has been called on it already. This is
589 because it will stall the whole program, and the whole point of using
590 events is to stay interactive.
591
592 It is fine, however, to call C<< ->recv >> when the user of your module
593 requests it (i.e. if you create a http request object ad have a method
594 called C<results> that returns the results, it should call C<< ->recv >>
595 freely, as the user of your module knows what she is doing. always).
596
597 =head1 WHAT TO DO IN THE MAIN PROGRAM
598
599 There will always be a single main program - the only place that should
600 dictate which event model to use.
601
602 If it doesn't care, it can just "use AnyEvent" and use it itself, or not
603 do anything special (it does not need to be event-based) and let AnyEvent
604 decide which implementation to chose if some module relies on it.
605
606 If the main program relies on a specific event model. For example, in
607 Gtk2 programs you have to rely on the Glib module. You should load the
608 event module before loading AnyEvent or any module that uses it: generally
609 speaking, you should load it as early as possible. The reason is that
610 modules might create watchers when they are loaded, and AnyEvent will
611 decide on the event model to use as soon as it creates watchers, and it
612 might chose the wrong one unless you load the correct one yourself.
613
614 You can chose to use a rather inefficient pure-perl implementation by
615 loading the C<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl> module, which gives you similar
616 behaviour everywhere, but letting AnyEvent chose is generally better.
617
618 =head1 OTHER MODULES
619
620 The following is a non-exhaustive list of additional modules that use
621 AnyEvent and can therefore be mixed easily with other AnyEvent modules
622 in the same program. Some of the modules come with AnyEvent, some are
623 available via CPAN.
624
625 =over 4
626
627 =item L<AnyEvent::Util>
628
629 Contains various utility functions that replace often-used but blocking
630 functions such as C<inet_aton> by event-/callback-based versions.
631
632 =item L<AnyEvent::Handle>
633
634 Provide read and write buffers and manages watchers for reads and writes.
635
636 =item L<AnyEvent::Socket>
637
638 Provides various utility functions for (internet protocol) sockets,
639 addresses and name resolution. Also functions to create non-blocking tcp
640 connections or tcp servers, with IPv6 and SRV record support and more.
641
642 =item L<AnyEvent::HTTPD>
643
644 Provides a simple web application server framework.
645
646 =item L<AnyEvent::DNS>
647
648 Provides rich asynchronous DNS resolver capabilities.
649
650 =item L<AnyEvent::FastPing>
651
652 The fastest ping in the west.
653
654 =item L<Net::IRC3>
655
656 AnyEvent based IRC client module family.
657
658 =item L<Net::XMPP2>
659
660 AnyEvent based XMPP (Jabber protocol) module family.
661
662 =item L<Net::FCP>
663
664 AnyEvent-based implementation of the Freenet Client Protocol, birthplace
665 of AnyEvent.
666
667 =item L<Event::ExecFlow>
668
669 High level API for event-based execution flow control.
670
671 =item L<Coro>
672
673 Has special support for AnyEvent via L<Coro::AnyEvent>.
674
675 =item L<AnyEvent::AIO>, L<IO::AIO>
676
677 Truly asynchronous I/O, should be in the toolbox of every event
678 programmer. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses IO::AIO and AnyEvent
679 together.
680
681 =item L<AnyEvent::BDB>, L<BDB>
682
683 Truly asynchronous Berkeley DB access. AnyEvent::AIO transparently fuses
684 IO::AIO and AnyEvent together.
685
686 =item L<IO::Lambda>
687
688 The lambda approach to I/O - don't ask, look there. Can use AnyEvent.
689
690 =back
691
692 =cut
693
694 package AnyEvent;
695
696 no warnings;
697 use strict;
698
699 use Carp;
700
701 our $VERSION = '3.6';
702 our $MODEL;
703
704 our $AUTOLOAD;
705 our @ISA;
706
707 our $verbose = $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}*1;
708
709 our @REGISTRY;
710
711 my @models = (
712 [EV:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EV::],
713 [Event:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Event::],
714 [Tk:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Tk::],
715 [Wx:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
716 [Prima:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::],
717 [AnyEvent::Impl::Perl:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Perl::],
718 # everything below here will not be autoprobed as the pureperl backend should work everywhere
719 [Glib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Glib::],
720 [Event::Lib:: => AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib::], # too buggy
721 [Qt:: => AnyEvent::Impl::Qt::], # requires special main program
722 [POE::Kernel:: => AnyEvent::Impl::POE::], # lasciate ogni speranza
723 );
724
725 our %method = map +($_ => 1), qw(io timer signal child condvar one_event DESTROY);
726
727 our @post_detect;
728
729 sub post_detect(&) {
730 my ($cb) = @_;
731
732 if ($MODEL) {
733 $cb->();
734
735 1
736 } else {
737 push @post_detect, $cb;
738
739 defined wantarray
740 ? bless \$cb, "AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect"
741 : ()
742 }
743 }
744
745 sub AnyEvent::Util::PostDetect::DESTROY {
746 @post_detect = grep $_ != ${$_[0]}, @post_detect;
747 }
748
749 sub detect() {
750 unless ($MODEL) {
751 no strict 'refs';
752
753 if ($ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} =~ /^([a-zA-Z]+)$/) {
754 my $model = "AnyEvent::Impl::$1";
755 if (eval "require $model") {
756 $MODEL = $model;
757 warn "AnyEvent: loaded model '$model' (forced by \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL), using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
758 } else {
759 warn "AnyEvent: unable to load model '$model' (from \$PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL):\n$@" if $verbose;
760 }
761 }
762
763 # check for already loaded models
764 unless ($MODEL) {
765 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
766 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
767 if (${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0) {
768 if (eval "require $model") {
769 $MODEL = $model;
770 warn "AnyEvent: autodetected model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
771 last;
772 }
773 }
774 }
775
776 unless ($MODEL) {
777 # try to load a model
778
779 for (@REGISTRY, @models) {
780 my ($package, $model) = @$_;
781 if (eval "require $package"
782 and ${"$package\::VERSION"} > 0
783 and eval "require $model") {
784 $MODEL = $model;
785 warn "AnyEvent: autoprobed model '$model', using it.\n" if $verbose > 1;
786 last;
787 }
788 }
789
790 $MODEL
791 or die "No event module selected for AnyEvent and autodetect failed. Install any one of these modules: EV, Event or Glib.";
792 }
793 }
794
795 unshift @ISA, $MODEL;
796 push @{"$MODEL\::ISA"}, "AnyEvent::Base";
797
798 (shift @post_detect)->() while @post_detect;
799 }
800
801 $MODEL
802 }
803
804 sub AUTOLOAD {
805 (my $func = $AUTOLOAD) =~ s/.*://;
806
807 $method{$func}
808 or croak "$func: not a valid method for AnyEvent objects";
809
810 detect unless $MODEL;
811
812 my $class = shift;
813 $class->$func (@_);
814 }
815
816 package AnyEvent::Base;
817
818 # default implementation for ->condvar
819
820 sub condvar {
821 bless { @_ == 3 ? (_ae_cb => $_[2]) : () }, AnyEvent::CondVar::
822 }
823
824 # default implementation for ->signal
825
826 our %SIG_CB;
827
828 sub signal {
829 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
830
831 my $signal = uc $arg{signal}
832 or Carp::croak "required option 'signal' is missing";
833
834 $SIG_CB{$signal}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
835 $SIG{$signal} ||= sub {
836 $_->() for values %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} || {} };
837 };
838
839 bless [$signal, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Signal"
840 }
841
842 sub AnyEvent::Base::Signal::DESTROY {
843 my ($signal, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
844
845 delete $SIG_CB{$signal}{$cb};
846
847 $SIG{$signal} = 'DEFAULT' unless keys %{ $SIG_CB{$signal} };
848 }
849
850 # default implementation for ->child
851
852 our %PID_CB;
853 our $CHLD_W;
854 our $CHLD_DELAY_W;
855 our $PID_IDLE;
856 our $WNOHANG;
857
858 sub _child_wait {
859 while (0 < (my $pid = waitpid -1, $WNOHANG)) {
860 $_->($pid, $?) for (values %{ $PID_CB{$pid} || {} }),
861 (values %{ $PID_CB{0} || {} });
862 }
863
864 undef $PID_IDLE;
865 }
866
867 sub _sigchld {
868 # make sure we deliver these changes "synchronous" with the event loop.
869 $CHLD_DELAY_W ||= AnyEvent->timer (after => 0, cb => sub {
870 undef $CHLD_DELAY_W;
871 &_child_wait;
872 });
873 }
874
875 sub child {
876 my (undef, %arg) = @_;
877
878 defined (my $pid = $arg{pid} + 0)
879 or Carp::croak "required option 'pid' is missing";
880
881 $PID_CB{$pid}{$arg{cb}} = $arg{cb};
882
883 unless ($WNOHANG) {
884 $WNOHANG = eval { require POSIX; &POSIX::WNOHANG } || 1;
885 }
886
887 unless ($CHLD_W) {
888 $CHLD_W = AnyEvent->signal (signal => 'CHLD', cb => \&_sigchld);
889 # child could be a zombie already, so make at least one round
890 &_sigchld;
891 }
892
893 bless [$pid, $arg{cb}], "AnyEvent::Base::Child"
894 }
895
896 sub AnyEvent::Base::Child::DESTROY {
897 my ($pid, $cb) = @{$_[0]};
898
899 delete $PID_CB{$pid}{$cb};
900 delete $PID_CB{$pid} unless keys %{ $PID_CB{$pid} };
901
902 undef $CHLD_W unless keys %PID_CB;
903 }
904
905 package AnyEvent::CondVar;
906
907 our @ISA = AnyEvent::CondVar::Base::;
908
909 package AnyEvent::CondVar::Base;
910
911 sub _send {
912 # nop
913 }
914
915 sub send {
916 my $cv = shift;
917 $cv->{_ae_sent} = [@_];
918 (delete $cv->{_ae_cb})->($cv) if $cv->{_ae_cb};
919 $cv->_send;
920 }
921
922 sub croak {
923 $_[0]{_ae_croak} = $_[1];
924 $_[0]->send;
925 }
926
927 sub ready {
928 $_[0]{_ae_sent}
929 }
930
931 sub _wait {
932 AnyEvent->one_event while !$_[0]{_ae_sent};
933 }
934
935 sub recv {
936 $_[0]->_wait;
937
938 Carp::croak $_[0]{_ae_croak} if $_[0]{_ae_croak};
939 wantarray ? @{ $_[0]{_ae_sent} } : $_[0]{_ae_sent}[0]
940 }
941
942 sub cb {
943 $_[0]{_ae_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
944 $_[0]{_ae_cb}
945 }
946
947 sub begin {
948 ++$_[0]{_ae_counter};
949 $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} = $_[1] if @_ > 1;
950 }
951
952 sub end {
953 return if --$_[0]{_ae_counter};
954 &{ $_[0]{_ae_end_cb} || sub { $_[0]->send } };
955 }
956
957 # undocumented/compatibility with pre-3.4
958 *broadcast = \&send;
959 *wait = \&_wait;
960
961 =head1 SUPPLYING YOUR OWN EVENT MODEL INTERFACE
962
963 This is an advanced topic that you do not normally need to use AnyEvent in
964 a module. This section is only of use to event loop authors who want to
965 provide AnyEvent compatibility.
966
967 If you need to support another event library which isn't directly
968 supported by AnyEvent, you can supply your own interface to it by
969 pushing, before the first watcher gets created, the package name of
970 the event module and the package name of the interface to use onto
971 C<@AnyEvent::REGISTRY>. You can do that before and even without loading
972 AnyEvent, so it is reasonably cheap.
973
974 Example:
975
976 push @AnyEvent::REGISTRY, [urxvt => urxvt::anyevent::];
977
978 This tells AnyEvent to (literally) use the C<urxvt::anyevent::>
979 package/class when it finds the C<urxvt> package/module is already loaded.
980
981 When AnyEvent is loaded and asked to find a suitable event model, it
982 will first check for the presence of urxvt by trying to C<use> the
983 C<urxvt::anyevent> module.
984
985 The class should provide implementations for all watcher types. See
986 L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV> (source code), L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> (Source code)
987 and so on for actual examples. Use C<perldoc -m AnyEvent::Impl::Glib> to
988 see the sources.
989
990 If you don't provide C<signal> and C<child> watchers than AnyEvent will
991 provide suitable (hopefully) replacements.
992
993 The above example isn't fictitious, the I<rxvt-unicode> (a.k.a. urxvt)
994 terminal emulator uses the above line as-is. An interface isn't included
995 in AnyEvent because it doesn't make sense outside the embedded interpreter
996 inside I<rxvt-unicode>, and it is updated and maintained as part of the
997 I<rxvt-unicode> distribution.
998
999 I<rxvt-unicode> also cheats a bit by not providing blocking access to
1000 condition variables: code blocking while waiting for a condition will
1001 C<die>. This still works with most modules/usages, and blocking calls must
1002 not be done in an interactive application, so it makes sense.
1003
1004 =head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
1005
1006 The following environment variables are used by this module:
1007
1008 =over 4
1009
1010 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE>
1011
1012 By default, AnyEvent will be completely silent except in fatal
1013 conditions. You can set this environment variable to make AnyEvent more
1014 talkative.
1015
1016 When set to C<1> or higher, causes AnyEvent to warn about unexpected
1017 conditions, such as not being able to load the event model specified by
1018 C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>.
1019
1020 When set to C<2> or higher, cause AnyEvent to report to STDERR which event
1021 model it chooses.
1022
1023 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL>
1024
1025 This can be used to specify the event model to be used by AnyEvent, before
1026 autodetection and -probing kicks in. It must be a string consisting
1027 entirely of ASCII letters. The string C<AnyEvent::Impl::> gets prepended
1028 and the resulting module name is loaded and if the load was successful,
1029 used as event model. If it fails to load AnyEvent will proceed with
1030 autodetection and -probing.
1031
1032 This functionality might change in future versions.
1033
1034 For example, to force the pure perl model (L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>) you
1035 could start your program like this:
1036
1037 PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL=Perl perl ...
1038
1039 =item C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS>
1040
1041 Used by both L<AnyEvent::DNS> and L<AnyEvent::Socket> to determine preferences
1042 for IPv4 or IPv6. The default is unspecified (and might change, or be the result
1043 of autoprobing).
1044
1045 Must be set to a comma-separated list of protocols or address families,
1046 current supported: C<ipv4> and C<ipv6>. Only protocols mentioned will be
1047 used, and preference will be given to protocols mentioned earlier in the
1048 list.
1049
1050 Examples: C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4,ipv6> - prefer IPv4 over IPv6,
1051 but support both and try to use both. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv4>
1052 - only support IPv4, never try to resolve or contact IPv6
1053 addressses. C<PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS=ipv6,ipv4> support either IPv4 or
1054 IPv6, but prefer IPv6 over IPv4.
1055
1056 =back
1057
1058 =head1 EXAMPLE PROGRAM
1059
1060 The following program uses an I/O watcher to read data from STDIN, a timer
1061 to display a message once per second, and a condition variable to quit the
1062 program when the user enters quit:
1063
1064 use AnyEvent;
1065
1066 my $cv = AnyEvent->condvar;
1067
1068 my $io_watcher = AnyEvent->io (
1069 fh => \*STDIN,
1070 poll => 'r',
1071 cb => sub {
1072 warn "io event <$_[0]>\n"; # will always output <r>
1073 chomp (my $input = <STDIN>); # read a line
1074 warn "read: $input\n"; # output what has been read
1075 $cv->send if $input =~ /^q/i; # quit program if /^q/i
1076 },
1077 );
1078
1079 my $time_watcher; # can only be used once
1080
1081 sub new_timer {
1082 $timer = AnyEvent->timer (after => 1, cb => sub {
1083 warn "timeout\n"; # print 'timeout' about every second
1084 &new_timer; # and restart the time
1085 });
1086 }
1087
1088 new_timer; # create first timer
1089
1090 $cv->recv; # wait until user enters /^q/i
1091
1092 =head1 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
1093
1094 Consider the L<Net::FCP> module. It features (among others) the following
1095 API calls, which are to freenet what HTTP GET requests are to http:
1096
1097 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url); # blocks
1098
1099 my $transaction = $fcp->txn_client_get ($url); # does not block
1100 $transaction->cb ( sub { ... } ); # set optional result callback
1101 my $data = $transaction->result; # possibly blocks
1102
1103 The C<client_get> method works like C<LWP::Simple::get>: it requests the
1104 given URL and waits till the data has arrived. It is defined to be:
1105
1106 sub client_get { $_[0]->txn_client_get ($_[1])->result }
1107
1108 And in fact is automatically generated. This is the blocking API of
1109 L<Net::FCP>, and it works as simple as in any other, similar, module.
1110
1111 More complicated is C<txn_client_get>: It only creates a transaction
1112 (completion, result, ...) object and initiates the transaction.
1113
1114 my $txn = bless { }, Net::FCP::Txn::;
1115
1116 It also creates a condition variable that is used to signal the completion
1117 of the request:
1118
1119 $txn->{finished} = AnyAvent->condvar;
1120
1121 It then creates a socket in non-blocking mode.
1122
1123 socket $txn->{fh}, ...;
1124 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK;
1125 connect $txn->{fh}, ...
1126 and !$!{EWOULDBLOCK}
1127 and !$!{EINPROGRESS}
1128 and Carp::croak "unable to connect: $!\n";
1129
1130 Then it creates a write-watcher which gets called whenever an error occurs
1131 or the connection succeeds:
1132
1133 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'w', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_w });
1134
1135 And returns this transaction object. The C<fh_ready_w> callback gets
1136 called as soon as the event loop detects that the socket is ready for
1137 writing.
1138
1139 The C<fh_ready_w> method makes the socket blocking again, writes the
1140 request data and replaces the watcher by a read watcher (waiting for reply
1141 data). The actual code is more complicated, but that doesn't matter for
1142 this example:
1143
1144 fcntl $txn->{fh}, F_SETFL, 0;
1145 syswrite $txn->{fh}, $txn->{request}
1146 or die "connection or write error";
1147 $txn->{w} = AnyEvent->io (fh => $txn->{fh}, poll => 'r', cb => sub { $txn->fh_ready_r });
1148
1149 Again, C<fh_ready_r> waits till all data has arrived, and then stores the
1150 result and signals any possible waiters that the request ahs finished:
1151
1152 sysread $txn->{fh}, $txn->{buf}, length $txn->{$buf};
1153
1154 if (end-of-file or data complete) {
1155 $txn->{result} = $txn->{buf};
1156 $txn->{finished}->send;
1157 $txb->{cb}->($txn) of $txn->{cb}; # also call callback
1158 }
1159
1160 The C<result> method, finally, just waits for the finished signal (if the
1161 request was already finished, it doesn't wait, of course, and returns the
1162 data:
1163
1164 $txn->{finished}->recv;
1165 return $txn->{result};
1166
1167 The actual code goes further and collects all errors (C<die>s, exceptions)
1168 that occured during request processing. The C<result> method detects
1169 whether an exception as thrown (it is stored inside the $txn object)
1170 and just throws the exception, which means connection errors and other
1171 problems get reported tot he code that tries to use the result, not in a
1172 random callback.
1173
1174 All of this enables the following usage styles:
1175
1176 1. Blocking:
1177
1178 my $data = $fcp->client_get ($url);
1179
1180 2. Blocking, but running in parallel:
1181
1182 my @datas = map $_->result,
1183 map $fcp->txn_client_get ($_),
1184 @urls;
1185
1186 Both blocking examples work without the module user having to know
1187 anything about events.
1188
1189 3a. Event-based in a main program, using any supported event module:
1190
1191 use EV;
1192
1193 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1194 my $txn = shift;
1195 my $data = $txn->result;
1196 ...
1197 });
1198
1199 EV::loop;
1200
1201 3b. The module user could use AnyEvent, too:
1202
1203 use AnyEvent;
1204
1205 my $quit = AnyEvent->condvar;
1206
1207 $fcp->txn_client_get ($url)->cb (sub {
1208 ...
1209 $quit->send;
1210 });
1211
1212 $quit->recv;
1213
1214
1215 =head1 BENCHMARKS
1216
1217 To give you an idea of the performance and overheads that AnyEvent adds
1218 over the event loops themselves and to give you an impression of the speed
1219 of various event loops I prepared some benchmarks.
1220
1221 =head2 BENCHMARKING ANYEVENT OVERHEAD
1222
1223 Here is a benchmark of various supported event models used natively and
1224 through anyevent. The benchmark creates a lot of timers (with a zero
1225 timeout) and I/O watchers (watching STDOUT, a pty, to become writable,
1226 which it is), lets them fire exactly once and destroys them again.
1227
1228 Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench> in the AnyEvent
1229 distribution.
1230
1231 =head3 Explanation of the columns
1232
1233 I<watcher> is the number of event watchers created/destroyed. Since
1234 different event models feature vastly different performances, each event
1235 loop was given a number of watchers so that overall runtime is acceptable
1236 and similar between tested event loop (and keep them from crashing): Glib
1237 would probably take thousands of years if asked to process the same number
1238 of watchers as EV in this benchmark.
1239
1240 I<bytes> is the number of bytes (as measured by the resident set size,
1241 RSS) consumed by each watcher. This method of measuring captures both C
1242 and Perl-based overheads.
1243
1244 I<create> is the time, in microseconds (millionths of seconds), that it
1245 takes to create a single watcher. The callback is a closure shared between
1246 all watchers, to avoid adding memory overhead. That means closure creation
1247 and memory usage is not included in the figures.
1248
1249 I<invoke> is the time, in microseconds, used to invoke a simple
1250 callback. The callback simply counts down a Perl variable and after it was
1251 invoked "watcher" times, it would C<< ->send >> a condvar once to
1252 signal the end of this phase.
1253
1254 I<destroy> is the time, in microseconds, that it takes to destroy a single
1255 watcher.
1256
1257 =head3 Results
1258
1259 name watchers bytes create invoke destroy comment
1260 EV/EV 400000 244 0.56 0.46 0.31 EV native interface
1261 EV/Any 100000 244 2.50 0.46 0.29 EV + AnyEvent watchers
1262 CoroEV/Any 100000 244 2.49 0.44 0.29 coroutines + Coro::Signal
1263 Perl/Any 100000 513 4.92 0.87 1.12 pure perl implementation
1264 Event/Event 16000 516 31.88 31.30 0.85 Event native interface
1265 Event/Any 16000 590 35.75 31.42 1.08 Event + AnyEvent watchers
1266 Glib/Any 16000 1357 98.22 12.41 54.00 quadratic behaviour
1267 Tk/Any 2000 1860 26.97 67.98 14.00 SEGV with >> 2000 watchers
1268 POE/Event 2000 6644 108.64 736.02 14.73 via POE::Loop::Event
1269 POE/Select 2000 6343 94.13 809.12 565.96 via POE::Loop::Select
1270
1271 =head3 Discussion
1272
1273 The benchmark does I<not> measure scalability of the event loop very
1274 well. For example, a select-based event loop (such as the pure perl one)
1275 can never compete with an event loop that uses epoll when the number of
1276 file descriptors grows high. In this benchmark, all events become ready at
1277 the same time, so select/poll-based implementations get an unnatural speed
1278 boost.
1279
1280 Also, note that the number of watchers usually has a nonlinear effect on
1281 overall speed, that is, creating twice as many watchers doesn't take twice
1282 the time - usually it takes longer. This puts event loops tested with a
1283 higher number of watchers at a disadvantage.
1284
1285 To put the range of results into perspective, consider that on the
1286 benchmark machine, handling an event takes roughly 1600 CPU cycles with
1287 EV, 3100 CPU cycles with AnyEvent's pure perl loop and almost 3000000 CPU
1288 cycles with POE.
1289
1290 C<EV> is the sole leader regarding speed and memory use, which are both
1291 maximal/minimal, respectively. Even when going through AnyEvent, it uses
1292 far less memory than any other event loop and is still faster than Event
1293 natively.
1294
1295 The pure perl implementation is hit in a few sweet spots (both the
1296 constant timeout and the use of a single fd hit optimisations in the perl
1297 interpreter and the backend itself). Nevertheless this shows that it
1298 adds very little overhead in itself. Like any select-based backend its
1299 performance becomes really bad with lots of file descriptors (and few of
1300 them active), of course, but this was not subject of this benchmark.
1301
1302 The C<Event> module has a relatively high setup and callback invocation
1303 cost, but overall scores in on the third place.
1304
1305 C<Glib>'s memory usage is quite a bit higher, but it features a
1306 faster callback invocation and overall ends up in the same class as
1307 C<Event>. However, Glib scales extremely badly, doubling the number of
1308 watchers increases the processing time by more than a factor of four,
1309 making it completely unusable when using larger numbers of watchers
1310 (note that only a single file descriptor was used in the benchmark, so
1311 inefficiencies of C<poll> do not account for this).
1312
1313 The C<Tk> adaptor works relatively well. The fact that it crashes with
1314 more than 2000 watchers is a big setback, however, as correctness takes
1315 precedence over speed. Nevertheless, its performance is surprising, as the
1316 file descriptor is dup()ed for each watcher. This shows that the dup()
1317 employed by some adaptors is not a big performance issue (it does incur a
1318 hidden memory cost inside the kernel which is not reflected in the figures
1319 above).
1320
1321 C<POE>, regardless of underlying event loop (whether using its pure perl
1322 select-based backend or the Event module, the POE-EV backend couldn't
1323 be tested because it wasn't working) shows abysmal performance and
1324 memory usage with AnyEvent: Watchers use almost 30 times as much memory
1325 as EV watchers, and 10 times as much memory as Event (the high memory
1326 requirements are caused by requiring a session for each watcher). Watcher
1327 invocation speed is almost 900 times slower than with AnyEvent's pure perl
1328 implementation.
1329
1330 The design of the POE adaptor class in AnyEvent can not really account
1331 for the performance issues, though, as session creation overhead is
1332 small compared to execution of the state machine, which is coded pretty
1333 optimally within L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE> (and while everybody agrees that
1334 using multiple sessions is not a good approach, especially regarding
1335 memory usage, even the author of POE could not come up with a faster
1336 design).
1337
1338 =head3 Summary
1339
1340 =over 4
1341
1342 =item * Using EV through AnyEvent is faster than any other event loop
1343 (even when used without AnyEvent), but most event loops have acceptable
1344 performance with or without AnyEvent.
1345
1346 =item * The overhead AnyEvent adds is usually much smaller than the overhead of
1347 the actual event loop, only with extremely fast event loops such as EV
1348 adds AnyEvent significant overhead.
1349
1350 =item * You should avoid POE like the plague if you want performance or
1351 reasonable memory usage.
1352
1353 =back
1354
1355 =head2 BENCHMARKING THE LARGE SERVER CASE
1356
1357 This benchmark atcually benchmarks the event loop itself. It works by
1358 creating a number of "servers": each server consists of a socketpair, a
1359 timeout watcher that gets reset on activity (but never fires), and an I/O
1360 watcher waiting for input on one side of the socket. Each time the socket
1361 watcher reads a byte it will write that byte to a random other "server".
1362
1363 The effect is that there will be a lot of I/O watchers, only part of which
1364 are active at any one point (so there is a constant number of active
1365 fds for each loop iterstaion, but which fds these are is random). The
1366 timeout is reset each time something is read because that reflects how
1367 most timeouts work (and puts extra pressure on the event loops).
1368
1369 In this benchmark, we use 10000 socketpairs (20000 sockets), of which 100
1370 (1%) are active. This mirrors the activity of large servers with many
1371 connections, most of which are idle at any one point in time.
1372
1373 Source code for this benchmark is found as F<eg/bench2> in the AnyEvent
1374 distribution.
1375
1376 =head3 Explanation of the columns
1377
1378 I<sockets> is the number of sockets, and twice the number of "servers" (as
1379 each server has a read and write socket end).
1380
1381 I<create> is the time it takes to create a socketpair (which is
1382 nontrivial) and two watchers: an I/O watcher and a timeout watcher.
1383
1384 I<request>, the most important value, is the time it takes to handle a
1385 single "request", that is, reading the token from the pipe and forwarding
1386 it to another server. This includes deleting the old timeout and creating
1387 a new one that moves the timeout into the future.
1388
1389 =head3 Results
1390
1391 name sockets create request
1392 EV 20000 69.01 11.16
1393 Perl 20000 73.32 35.87
1394 Event 20000 212.62 257.32
1395 Glib 20000 651.16 1896.30
1396 POE 20000 349.67 12317.24 uses POE::Loop::Event
1397
1398 =head3 Discussion
1399
1400 This benchmark I<does> measure scalability and overall performance of the
1401 particular event loop.
1402
1403 EV is again fastest. Since it is using epoll on my system, the setup time
1404 is relatively high, though.
1405
1406 Perl surprisingly comes second. It is much faster than the C-based event
1407 loops Event and Glib.
1408
1409 Event suffers from high setup time as well (look at its code and you will
1410 understand why). Callback invocation also has a high overhead compared to
1411 the C<< $_->() for .. >>-style loop that the Perl event loop uses. Event
1412 uses select or poll in basically all documented configurations.
1413
1414 Glib is hit hard by its quadratic behaviour w.r.t. many watchers. It
1415 clearly fails to perform with many filehandles or in busy servers.
1416
1417 POE is still completely out of the picture, taking over 1000 times as long
1418 as EV, and over 100 times as long as the Perl implementation, even though
1419 it uses a C-based event loop in this case.
1420
1421 =head3 Summary
1422
1423 =over 4
1424
1425 =item * The pure perl implementation performs extremely well.
1426
1427 =item * Avoid Glib or POE in large projects where performance matters.
1428
1429 =back
1430
1431 =head2 BENCHMARKING SMALL SERVERS
1432
1433 While event loops should scale (and select-based ones do not...) even to
1434 large servers, most programs we (or I :) actually write have only a few
1435 I/O watchers.
1436
1437 In this benchmark, I use the same benchmark program as in the large server
1438 case, but it uses only eight "servers", of which three are active at any
1439 one time. This should reflect performance for a small server relatively
1440 well.
1441
1442 The columns are identical to the previous table.
1443
1444 =head3 Results
1445
1446 name sockets create request
1447 EV 16 20.00 6.54
1448 Perl 16 25.75 12.62
1449 Event 16 81.27 35.86
1450 Glib 16 32.63 15.48
1451 POE 16 261.87 276.28 uses POE::Loop::Event
1452
1453 =head3 Discussion
1454
1455 The benchmark tries to test the performance of a typical small
1456 server. While knowing how various event loops perform is interesting, keep
1457 in mind that their overhead in this case is usually not as important, due
1458 to the small absolute number of watchers (that is, you need efficiency and
1459 speed most when you have lots of watchers, not when you only have a few of
1460 them).
1461
1462 EV is again fastest.
1463
1464 Perl again comes second. It is noticably faster than the C-based event
1465 loops Event and Glib, although the difference is too small to really
1466 matter.
1467
1468 POE also performs much better in this case, but is is still far behind the
1469 others.
1470
1471 =head3 Summary
1472
1473 =over 4
1474
1475 =item * C-based event loops perform very well with small number of
1476 watchers, as the management overhead dominates.
1477
1478 =back
1479
1480
1481 =head1 FORK
1482
1483 Most event libraries are not fork-safe. The ones who are usually are
1484 because they rely on inefficient but fork-safe C<select> or C<poll>
1485 calls. Only L<EV> is fully fork-aware.
1486
1487 If you have to fork, you must either do so I<before> creating your first
1488 watcher OR you must not use AnyEvent at all in the child.
1489
1490
1491 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1492
1493 AnyEvent can be forced to load any event model via
1494 $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL}. While this cannot (to my knowledge) be used to
1495 execute arbitrary code or directly gain access, it can easily be used to
1496 make the program hang or malfunction in subtle ways, as AnyEvent watchers
1497 will not be active when the program uses a different event model than
1498 specified in the variable.
1499
1500 You can make AnyEvent completely ignore this variable by deleting it
1501 before the first watcher gets created, e.g. with a C<BEGIN> block:
1502
1503 BEGIN { delete $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL} }
1504
1505 use AnyEvent;
1506
1507 Similar considerations apply to $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_VERBOSE}, as that can
1508 be used to probe what backend is used and gain other information (which is
1509 probably even less useful to an attacker than PERL_ANYEVENT_MODEL).
1510
1511
1512 =head1 SEE ALSO
1513
1514 Utility functions: L<AnyEvent::Util>.
1515
1516 Event modules: L<EV>, L<EV::Glib>, L<Glib::EV>, L<Event>, L<Glib::Event>,
1517 L<Glib>, L<Tk>, L<Event::Lib>, L<Qt>, L<POE>.
1518
1519 Implementations: L<AnyEvent::Impl::EV>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Event>,
1520 L<AnyEvent::Impl::Glib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Tk>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Perl>,
1521 L<AnyEvent::Impl::EventLib>, L<AnyEvent::Impl::Qt>,
1522 L<AnyEvent::Impl::POE>.
1523
1524 Non-blocking file handles, sockets, TCP clients and
1525 servers: L<AnyEvent::Handle>, L<AnyEvent::Socket>.
1526
1527 Asynchronous DNS: L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1528
1529 Coroutine support: L<Coro>, L<Coro::AnyEvent>, L<Coro::EV>, L<Coro::Event>,
1530
1531 Nontrivial usage examples: L<Net::FCP>, L<Net::XMPP2>, L<AnyEvent::DNS>.
1532
1533
1534 =head1 AUTHOR
1535
1536 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1537 http://home.schmorp.de/
1538
1539 =cut
1540
1541 1
1542